


Bang Bang Go Away Come Again Another Day

by Incoherentbabblings



Category: Batgirl (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, DCU (Comics)
Genre: Gen, Gun Violence, When the Joker knocks on the door don't answer it okay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-05
Updated: 2019-10-05
Packaged: 2020-11-24 16:09:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,888
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20910425
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Incoherentbabblings/pseuds/Incoherentbabblings
Summary: The Joker catches wind of that blonde girl that was Robin is a) not dead like Black Mask said, and b) currently Batgirl.  Clearly these need remedying.





	Bang Bang Go Away Come Again Another Day

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by a few asks I received last month on my tumblr regarding a potential Steph and Joker clash. Stephanie not being higher on the Joker’s shit list despite having been both Robin and Batgirl pre!New52 is such a wasted opportunity. I do wonder what he would have made of her?
> 
> **Edit: ** Updated for grammar 22nd November 2020.

Stephanie didn’t really know what to do when she looked through the peep hole of her front door only to find the Joker waiting patiently outside, a humorously large gun in one hand. 

In hindsight she should have kept quiet and fled out the back door of her mom’s house, dragging Crystal (who was currently upstairs sleeping after her fifth night shift on the trot) with her. 

She should have grabbed her bat-com and rang the emergency bell as soon as she recognized the green and purple man in his stupid shoes on her doorstep.

She should have done a lot of things, but what she should most definitely not have done was acknowledge him.

“Hullo?” she called through the door, like an idiot, her tone baffled and not reflecting the correct level of fear as the one that churned in her gut.

As soon as the words left her mouth, she recoiled back in horror at herself. She felt her legs wobble and she curled down. Her head continually banged against her knees whilst she silently swore, because honestly _what the actual hell Steph don’t say hello as if he’s the mailman or something_ –

“Ms Brown?” the Joker’s annoyingly chirpy voice drifted through the wood. “Ms Brown, I want to have a word with you.”

“Uuuhhhh, she can’t answer the door right now.”

“…Why?”

“She’s dead?”

Her mouth had apparently reached a stage where it was running independently from her brain. Her hands fortunately, had caught up with her head, and pulled out her emergency alarm. The others would be here soon, maybe she could keep him talking in the meantime.

“Ah! No, see, that’s the issue.” 

And then his grubby hand was poking through the letter box, nails grimy and stained dark red. 

“You are very clearly not dead. And I – the Joker –”

“I know who you are,” she interrupted rudely.

There was a slight pause as he processed being cut off so sharply. Stephanie heard her breath shudder out of her like a death rattle while she waited to see what he what say or do next. Swallowing uncomfortably, she slowly moved back towards the door as quietly as she could manage. She was unable to look away from his fingers poking through the slit. Suppressing the urge to kick them, she tried not to physically escalate the situation.

He coughed, and his hand became reanimated once more. She flinched back. 

“Ahem. That was rude,” the Joker confirmed. “Anyway, my point is, it is my job, as the Joker, to remedy that.”

“…No thank you.”

He seemed amused by her flippant tone. It was a defence mechanism more than anything. She would always bite back at her father and his gang of losers when they were trying to frighten her, just as she bit back at Black Mask, at Scarecrow, at the whole lot. She tried not to treat the Joker any different.

His fingers continued to flutter through the letter box. 

“I know you were Robin.”

“I was a black-haired boy?”

“No, no, no. There was a blond girl for a moment. Remember?”

“Not really.”

She was on the floor now, knees pressed up against her chest and pressed against the left-hand side of the door in case he tried to push his way in. For the moment he seemed a bit defeated, like he actually believed her. The fingers went droopy. Suddenly he perked up again, flapping them frantically, Stephanie tried not to flinch.

“Ah! You’re lying! I know Stephanie Brown was Robin and I know Black Mask thought he killed her and I was so soso so so sososo mad about it but _HEY_! Here you are alive and well and Batgirl, therefore my title as the defeater of Robins remains unchallenged. Harvey couldn’t do, Roman couldn’t do it, only me! And hey, you’ve been Robin _and_ Batgirl, so I get double dibs!”

His laughter vibrated through the wood of the door and made Stephanie squeeze her eyes shut. Horrid gurgling laughter that seemed to pierce her right to the bone. He withdrew his hand from the letter box, but there was no relief, as soon he began frantically banging on the door. Stephanie silently begged for her mother to remain asleep through the racket. 

“Open up Ms Brown! Chop chop!”

“Why would I open the door?” she bit out, pressing a palm against the lock and latch.

“Because the sooner you open the door the quicker it’ll be over… durrr!”

“Just go away!” she cried out, feeling like a small child telling off a bully on the playground.

The banging stopped abruptly, and the Joker sighed. Disappointed with her uncooperative nature, he stomped off. 

Waiting for nothing, Stephanie threw herself upstairs. She dashed to her closet, grabbing her utility belt and nothing else, before crashing into her mother’s bedroom.

Her mom was sound asleep under the covers, face down on the pillows. Like her daughter, she drooled while she slept. 

“Mom mom mom mommommommom_moooommmmm_,” Stephanie slurred, shaking Crystal aggressively. Crystal grunted and flailed her arms, trying to throw her daughter off the bed.

“Stephanie what the actual –”

“The _Joker_ is here… mom, we need to get out.”

Immediately her mother was alert, shoving past her daughter with a near slap to the face, grabbing shoes. She looked a sight without her glasses, drying spit on her chin and in blue plaid bottoms and white t-shirt that read _Beauty Sleep_ in obnoxious glittery fonts.

“Why is he here?”

Stephanie gulped.

“Stephanie!”

“Why do you _think_? For a cup of coffee?”

“Don’t get snippy with me!”

“I’m _stressed_!”

“And I’m not?”

“Mom please we need to –”

The sound of glass crashing, the kitchen window downstairs, interrupted Stephanie and she froze, looming over her mother putting on her nurse shoes.

“Shit,” they both muttered.

Stephanie burst over to the bedroom door, shutting it and began dragging her mother’s chest of drawers across. She huffed at its weight, but Crystal got the idea quickly, running to the other side and helping her slide it in front of the door. 

“Help’s on its way,” Stephanie promised her mother.

Any residual comfort from that statement broke with the sound of the gun firing around the house. Crystal had gone paler than Stephanie had ever seen her. 

Stephanie dared to tip toe to the window, the curtains still closed, and peaked from underneath. They could go through and roll down the eave to a safe distance to drop down. It was what her mom had banged into her about the off chance of a large housefire, but for all Stephanie knew the Joker had his minions milling around outside, waiting for her and her much slower mother to come clattering out. 

Her little communicator, the one she had been gripping since she first blurted a greeting to the man downstairs, started to flash amber. A few more minutes.

“Oh, thank God.”

Gun shots burst through the door frame then, some getting wedged in the chest of drawers, some flying through above and burying themselves into the wall. One whizzed past Stephanie’s head, through the curtains and breaking the windowpane. Stephanie wheezed and threw herself back over to her mom, who had remained off to the side, out of range. She gasped and pulled Stephanie close. The two grappled at each other, both trying to position themselves in a potential line of fire in place of the other. The bullets continued to be fired for a solid minute, the room becoming utterly wrecked in the process.

“Ms Brown are you dead yet?”

With her mother in the room Stephanie couldn’t find the nerve to antagonise him anymore. She instead gripped at her mother’s shirt tighter.

“Mom I need to –”

“No,” her mother hissed, refusing to hear whatever she had planned to allow Crystal to escape.

“Blondies, I can hear you both. This house is not very soundproof.”

“Oh, _fuck_ off!” Stephanie yelled.

“Rude!” Another minute of fire. “How about you come out and your mother won’t die? Just you huh? I mean admittedly with Jason I –”

Thankfully, he didn’t get to finish that statement, as with a cartoonish glurk he was abruptly thrown back from the door. Distantly the two women heard him fall down the stairs. 

Stephanie gulped but didn’t move. Her mother had her hand buried deep in Stephanie’s blonde hair, stroking it to an almost painful degree.

“Mom that hurts.”

The hand stopped, and reluctantly, slowly, let her go.

“Sorry.”

“It’s good.”

Looking around the wrecked room with the sounds of sirens arriving, both women jumped when somebody attempted to open the hole ridden door.

“Stephanie,” called Batman from the other side. Immediately both women jumped up and went to remove the collapsing drawers from the door.

The slightly bizarre image of Batman standing in her suburban home (which was utterly and wholly ruined _thank you Joker_) facing a middle-aged woman in her jammies and a late teen whose hair was half falling out of a ponytail made Stephanie want to laugh.

She didn’t.

“Thank you. We’re fine,” she assured Bruce. He nodded.

“Physically,” Crystal interjected. She pushed pass the two to survey the damage. Bringing her hands up to her mouth, she cried out. “Oh, my poor house!”

Stephanie frowned at the broken furniture and ruined walls. A framed picture that had fallen off the wall of her and Tim and Cass had a bullet in each of their heads. An orchid plant, one she had bought her mother two Christmases ago, lay shattered in the hallway, soil ruining the carpet. Returning her gaze to Batman, she nudged him conspiratorially. He stared back for a moment and rocked on his heels from her shoulder nudge.

Heaving a sigh, he muttered for Stephanie’s ears alone, “I can help with that.”

“Thank you.” Shoving her hands in her pocket, she tried not to look as worried as she felt. “…He knew. About me. What I am and been.”

Would they have to leave Gotham for their safety? Joker knew about the others, was she just the passing fancy that had popped into his head at that moment upon learning the news? Would he grow bored after this? Or was she now forever to be cautious of someone wanting her head on a spike? Someone who knew her name, knew her mother, knew her address…knew everything that mattered? Black Mask was gone. The Joker… he always remained. A laughing phantom.

“Hnn.”

Bruce’s unhelpful response made her hackles rise.

“Did you know he knew?”

Tersely, she waited for a quick and solid denial. No such response came, only silence, and Stephanie felt a familiar lump of disappointment return to her stomach. Her mouth dropped open in a grimace, and she choked on a breath.

“…Well, glad to see my time as Robin continues to be a legacy of a never-ending nightmare.” And then she shoved past, the reality of what had just occurred catching up with her. Her eyes grew wet, and her breathing became shaky. 

She managed to whisper, “I’ll see you on patrol later,” and then she walked over to her mother and held her tight. When she looked over her mother’s shoulder, she saw Bruce had left, having no words of comfort to give.

She began sobbing in earnest, and Crystal gripped her close.

**Author's Note:**

> Cross posting from my tumblr (also at incoherentbabblings) if you would like to have a chit chat!


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